Promise check: Achieve a surplus of 1pc of GDP by 2023

In his election campaign launch speech on August 25, 2013, Tony Abbott promised that a Coalition government would "get the budget back under control" and be "on track to a believable surplus" in its first term.

"Within a decade, the budget surplus will be 1 per cent of GDP," he said.

A fortnight earlier, the Treasury released its Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which estimated an underlying cash deficit of $30.1 billion, equivalent to 1.9 per cent of Australia's GDP, for the year to June 30, 2014. "The fiscal outlook is for a return to budget surplus in 2016-17," it said.